Joan Fernandez
Joan Fernandez is a historical fiction author, speaker, and former senior marketing executive dedicated to elevating the overlooked stories of courageous women who shaped history—often from the margins.
Her debut novel, Saving Vincent: A Novel of Jo van Gogh (April 2025), tells the remarkable true story of Jo van Gogh—Theo’s widow, mother, and art dealer who preserved Vincent van Gogh’s legacy and helped elevate his work to international acclaim.
“Saving Vincent... forces readers to become deeply invested in Jo as a woman, creating an unforgettable portrait of resilience and passion.” — 2025 Readers' Favorite Book Awards Gold Medalist in Historical – Personage.
Joan is also the author of “A Parisian Daughter,” about a defiant young socialite,
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Ashley E. Sweeney
Multi award-winning author Ashley E. Sweeney’s fourth novel, The Irish Girl, released December 2024. Her previous novels, Eliza Waite, Answer Creek, and Hardland, have won a total of 17 awards, including the Nancy Pearl Book Award, Independent Press Award, WILLA Literary Award, and New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Sweeney, a native New Yorker and graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, spends winters in Tucson and summers in the Pacific Northwest.
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Barbara Boyle
For years, Barbara Boyle enjoyed a colorful worldwide career as a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, Grey, Lowe and other advertising agencies, creating commercials and stories for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Mars Inc, and dozens of other marketers. Always a writer, this is the first time she has had the time required to author a book. Her flash fiction has appeared in Sky Island Journal, Star 82 Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and other literary journals. Food and wine have also been a lifelong passion of hers. While living in Paris, she took the Regional French Cuisine course at Le Cordon Bleu and later completed the professional cooking course at The Institute of Culinary Education in New York. She now resides in a farmhous
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Kathleen Somers
Kathleen Somers, a debut author, holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, and works as a freelance graphic designer and copywriter. She is a passionate observer of humanity who believes in the power of connection that comes from each of us sharing our individual stories, and the importance of authenticity when doing it. Having spent 24 years guiding her son through a disability most can’t see has not made her an authority on the topic. It’s having been the student to all that he has taught her that has brought her closer than anything ever will. When Kathleen isn’t busy with her career as a creative, she is out on her bike finding new roads to explore, or spending time with her son, opening his eyes to eve
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Kay Smith-Blum
Kay Smith-Blum is a former business owner and Seattle School Board President. A lover of the natural world and an avid gardener, Smith-Blum founded Environmental Endeavors, the first greenhouse program in Seattle Public Schools. A fan of mid-20th-century history, Smith-Blum has penned two other manuscripts set in Texas, but the recent upheaval over leaking waste tanks at the Hanford site drew her in. A meticulous researcher, Smith-Blum felt compelled to write the Hanford story in a way that would educate and entertain readers, redefining historical fiction. The result is her debut novel, TANGLES, coming December 3, 2024. Smith-Blum’s published short works may be found in multiple literary journals. A companion short story to TANGLES is incl
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Jann Alexander
Jann Alexander writes characters who face down their fears. Her novels are as close-to-true as fiction can get.
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Jann is the author of the historical novel, UNSPOKEN, set in the Texas Panhandle during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression eras, and her first book in The Dust Series. With ten years of research into Texas, she's also a speaker on its hidden histories.
Jann writes on all things creative in her blog, Pairings. She's a 20-year resident of central Texas and creator of the Vanishing Austin photography series. As a former art director for ad agencies and magazines in the D.C. area, and a painter, photographer, and art gallery owner, creativity is her practice and passion.
Jann's lifelong storytelling habit and her more recent zeal for Te -
Ann Hood
Ann Hood is the editor of Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting and the bestselling author of The Book That Matters Most, The Knitting Circle, The Red Thread, Comfort, and An Italian Wife, among other works. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award, a Best American Food Writing Award, a Best American Travel Writing Award, and the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Susan Meissner
Susan Meissner is a USA Today bestselling novelist with more than a million books in the hands of readers, and in eighteen languages. Her critically acclaimed works of historical fiction have been named to numerous lists including Publishers Weekly’s annual roster of 100 best books, Library Reads Top Picks, Real Simple annual tally of best books, Goodreads Readers’ Choice awards, Booklist’s Top Ten, and Book of the Month.
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She attended Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and is a former managing editor of a weekly newspaper. Susan’s expertise as a storyteller and her thoroughly researched topics make her a favorite author of book clubs everywhere. Her engaging and warm speaking style appeal to all manner of women’s groups, literary o -
Laura Lippman
Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.” Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her teenager.
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Kristin Harmel
Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author of The Paris Daughter, The Forest of Vanishing Stars, The Book of Lost Names, The Winemaker’s Wife, and a dozen other novels that have been translated into more than 30 languages and are sold all over the world.
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Kristin has been writing professionally since the age of 16, when she began her career as a sportswriter, covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey for a local magazine in Tampa Bay, Florida in the late 1990s. In addition to a long magazine writing career, primarily writing and reporting for PEOPLE magazine (as well as articles published in numerous other magazines, including American Baby, Men’s Health, Woman’s Day, a -
Sally Page
After studying history at university, Sally moved to London to work in advertising. In her spare time she studied floristry at night school and eventually opened her own flower shop. Sally came to appreciate that flower shops offer a unique window into people’s stories and she began to photograph and write about this floral life in a series of non-fiction books. Later, she continued her interest in writing when she founded her fountain pen company, Plooms.co.uk.
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In her debut novel, The Keeper of Stories, Sally combines her love of history and writing with her abiding interest in the stories people have to tell. Sally now lives in Dorset. Her eldest daughter, Alex, is studying to be a doctor and her younger daughter is the author, Libby Page. -
Patricia Falvey
Patricia Falvey is an Irish-born writer living in Dallas, Texas. She is the author of 5 novels, all with a connection to Ireland: The Yellow House; The Linen Queen; The Girls of Ennismore; The Titanic Sisters; and, most recently, The Famine Orphans which will be released on May 27, 2025.
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Patricia immigrated alone to the U.S. at the age of 20 and forged a long and successful career in the financial services industry, rising to a Managing Director for a major consulting firm where she oversaw a national tax practice. However, she never lost sight of her dream of becoming a published author and in 2008 walked away from her old career to give her dream a chance. In 2010 her courage was rewarded with the publication of The Yellow House. She view -
Lisa Montanaro
Lisa Montanaro is part no-nonsense Italian American New Yorker and part sunny Californian. She has a unique background as a performer, teacher of the Deaf, lawyer, coach, speaker, and author. Lisa writes book club fiction featuring complex characters breaking barriers and fighting to truly be themselves despite obstacles in their way—including the time they live in and societal stigmas.
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Her debut novel, Everything We Thought Was True, released January 2025 by Red Adept Publishing. It won first place for LGBTQ Fiction in the 2024 International Firebird Book Awards, honorable mention for General Fiction in the 2025 Los Angeles Book Festival, and finalist for LGBTQ Fiction in the National Indie Excellence Awards. Her chapter, “The Brand Called -
Hazel Gaynor
Hazel Gaynor is an award-winning New York Times and internationally bestselling author of historical novels which explore the defining events of the 20th century. A recipient of the 2015 RNA Historical Novel award and the 2024 Audie award for Best Fiction Narrator, she was also shortlisted for the 2019 HWA Gold Crown, and the Irish Book Awards in 2017, 2020 and 2023.
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Hazel’s co-written historical novels with Heather Webb have all been published to critical acclaim, winning or being shortlisted for several international awards.
She is a regular speaker at literary festivals, co-founder of The Inspiration Project, and programmed and hosted a series of Historia Live events in association with Dublin UNESCO City of Literature in 2024. Her work -
Sharon Kurtzman
Sharon Kurtzman worked in television marketing before pursuing her dream of becoming a writer. She earned her MFA in fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and her undergraduate degree from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. The Lost Baker of Vienna was inspired by the war and postwar experiences of her own family, who were Holocaust survivors. Kurtzman lives in North Carolina with her husband; they have two adult children.
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Barbara Boyle
For years, Barbara Boyle enjoyed a colorful worldwide career as a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, Grey, Lowe and other advertising agencies, creating commercials and stories for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Mars Inc, and dozens of other marketers. Always a writer, this is the first time she has had the time required to author a book. Her flash fiction has appeared in Sky Island Journal, Star 82 Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and other literary journals. Food and wine have also been a lifelong passion of hers. While living in Paris, she took the Regional French Cuisine course at Le Cordon Bleu and later completed the professional cooking course at The Institute of Culinary Education in New York. She now resides in a farmhous
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Anastasia Alexander
Anastasia Alexander doesn’t have the answers to life’s love questions. What she does know is that love in the 21st Century is complex. There are no easy answers, and there is a lot of richness and juiciness in exploring all the complexity that love brings.
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Her credentials are two failed marriages, equaling twenty-three years of marriage and a willingness to believe that maybe a third one will be her lucky number. Or she might decide to compete with Elizabeth Taylor for who can get married the most times. It is yet to be determined which option she’s going to go for, but until then she pours her passion and sarcasm for relationships into her stories. -
Gwen Tuinman
Gwen Tuinman is descended from Irish tenant farmers and English Quakers. Her storytelling influences include soul searching, an interest in bygone days, and the complexities of living a life. Fascinated by the landscape of human tenacity, she writes about women navigating the social restrictions of their era. Gwen lives with her husband on a small rural homestead in Ontario’s Kawartha Lakes region.
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Martha Hall Kelly
Martha is still pinching herself after her debut novel LILAC GIRLS, about socialite Caroline Ferriday and her fight to help a group of concentration camp survivors, became an Instant NY Times bestseller in 2016 and went on to sell over two million copies. Once the paperback stayed on the NYT list for 54 weeks, and became published in fifty countries she wrote three more novels: LOST ROSES about Caroline's mother, SUNFLOWER SISTERS about her great grandmother, and THE GOLDEN DOVES about two best friends who unite to find a missing Nazi doctor. Martha's next book, which arrives summer 2025, is THE MARTHA'S VINEYARD BEACH AND BOOK CLUB about two sisters who turn the tide of the war with the help of their book club. Martha grew up in Massachuse
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Ashley E. Sweeney
Multi award-winning author Ashley E. Sweeney’s fourth novel, The Irish Girl, released December 2024. Her previous novels, Eliza Waite, Answer Creek, and Hardland, have won a total of 17 awards, including the Nancy Pearl Book Award, Independent Press Award, WILLA Literary Award, and New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Sweeney, a native New Yorker and graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, spends winters in Tucson and summers in the Pacific Northwest.
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Catherine Matthews
Catherine Matthews is an award-winning Pacific Northwest author. Through her novels, she tells the stories of strong women finding the courage to face the storm and live their dreams—usually in the company of a faithful hound.
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Catherine’s debut novel, Releasing the Reins, earned first place in the 2024 BookFest Awards for Women’s Fiction Mystery and Suspense and was the 2024 Fall Pencraft Award Best Book for Women’s Fiction. It is a finalist for the 2024 BookLife Prize for Mystery and Suspense and was a 2022 Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) Literary Contest Finalist.
Her essay, Deeper Than Social Connections, is featured in the anthology Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 (Jennifer Haupt, Ed.), winne -
Alka Joshi
There comes a point in every daughter's life when she begins seeing her mother as a person separate from her family, someone who has an identity outside of motherhood. That was the moment I began re-imagining my mother's life, and that re-imagining became THE HENNA ARTIST. I was born in Rajasthan, India, and moved with my family to the U.S. when I was nine. Even after graduating from Stanford University, and working in advertising and marketing, I never considered becoming an author. But taking my mother to India in her later years changed all that. In 2011, I got my MFA in Creative Writing from the California College of Arts in San Francisco, California. It took 10 years, a lot of research, and many trips to India to complete my debut nove
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Shara Moon
Shara Moon is a first-generation Haitian American writer and amateur historian who enjoys exploring Black world history. She is a former college writing instructor with degrees from the University of Central Florida and the City College of New York. LET US MARCH ON is her debut historical fiction novel.
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Rebecca J. Sanford
Rebecca J. Sanford is the author of The Disappeared, recipient of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Rising Star Award. She received her MA in International Affairs from The New School in NYC. Rebecca lives in Florida with her family.
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Kay Smith-Blum
Kay Smith-Blum is a former business owner and Seattle School Board President. A lover of the natural world and an avid gardener, Smith-Blum founded Environmental Endeavors, the first greenhouse program in Seattle Public Schools. A fan of mid-20th-century history, Smith-Blum has penned two other manuscripts set in Texas, but the recent upheaval over leaking waste tanks at the Hanford site drew her in. A meticulous researcher, Smith-Blum felt compelled to write the Hanford story in a way that would educate and entertain readers, redefining historical fiction. The result is her debut novel, TANGLES, coming December 3, 2024. Smith-Blum’s published short works may be found in multiple literary journals. A companion short story to TANGLES is incl
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Jill Amy Sager
Jill Amy Sager is a celebrated Tarot reader, channeler, and public speaker with an international clientele. Her compassionate readings offer deep insight and clarity. Born with a physical disability, in the Bronx, Jill’s journey from low self-esteem to self-love has inspired her to help others find spiritual empowerment. Based in Western Oregon today, Jill continues to uplift her clients through hope-filled guidance and healing.
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Guidance from the Universe: Hopeful Messages for Everyday Challenges is her 2nd non-fiction book.
She authored the instructional "Beginning Hand Drumming: A Guide to Recreation and Wellness," after her ten years of being a professional percussionist. According to Dave Getz, drummer for Janis Joplin and Big Brother a -
Jenn Todling
Jenn Todling is an author, speaker, executive coach, and adjunct instructor at the University of Denver as part of its Frontline Manager Leadership Program. As a retired audit partner at a global Big 4 accounting firm with over twenty years of professional services experience and an ICF-certified transformational leadership coach for over ten years, Jenn helps her clients express their soul in their work. She currently resides near her hometown of Boulder, Colorado, with her husband (and dance partner) and daughter. Dancing on My Own Two Feet is her first book.
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Kate Broad
Kate Broad holds a BA from Wellesley College and a PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center. She is a Bronx Council on the Arts award winner for fiction and her writing appears widely in literary journals and online. Her first novel, Greenwich, was released in 2025 from St. Martin's Press and was named one of People Magazine's Best New Books, a Vanity Fair Summer Read, and an Amazon Editor's Pick for Best New Literature and Fiction. Originally from Massachusetts, she lives in the Bronx.
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N.J. Mastro
N.J. Mastro is a historical fiction author and writes Herstory Revisited, a blog that reviews biographical novels about audacious women from the past.
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Mastro has a master’s degree and a doctorate in educational leadership. She's an avid reader, master cook, and wine enthusiast.
Find her and her blog at njmastro.com -
Jann Alexander
Jann Alexander writes characters who face down their fears. Her novels are as close-to-true as fiction can get.
Buy books on Amazon
Jann is the author of the historical novel, UNSPOKEN, set in the Texas Panhandle during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression eras, and her first book in The Dust Series. With ten years of research into Texas, she's also a speaker on its hidden histories.
Jann writes on all things creative in her blog, Pairings. She's a 20-year resident of central Texas and creator of the Vanishing Austin photography series. As a former art director for ad agencies and magazines in the D.C. area, and a painter, photographer, and art gallery owner, creativity is her practice and passion.
Jann's lifelong storytelling habit and her more recent zeal for Te -
N.J. Mastro
N.J. Mastro is a historical fiction author and writes Herstory Revisited, a blog that reviews biographical novels about audacious women from the past.
Buy books on Amazon
Mastro has a master’s degree and a doctorate in educational leadership. She's an avid reader, master cook, and wine enthusiast.
Find her and her blog at njmastro.com -
Catherine Matthews
Catherine Matthews is an award-winning Pacific Northwest author. Through her novels, she tells the stories of strong women finding the courage to face the storm and live their dreams—usually in the company of a faithful hound.
Buy books on Amazon
Catherine’s debut novel, Releasing the Reins, earned first place in the 2024 BookFest Awards for Women’s Fiction Mystery and Suspense and was the 2024 Fall Pencraft Award Best Book for Women’s Fiction. It is a finalist for the 2024 BookLife Prize for Mystery and Suspense and was a 2022 Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) Literary Contest Finalist.
Her essay, Deeper Than Social Connections, is featured in the anthology Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 (Jennifer Haupt, Ed.), winne -
Jenn Todling
Jenn Todling is an author, speaker, executive coach, and adjunct instructor at the University of Denver as part of its Frontline Manager Leadership Program. As a retired audit partner at a global Big 4 accounting firm with over twenty years of professional services experience and an ICF-certified transformational leadership coach for over ten years, Jenn helps her clients express their soul in their work. She currently resides near her hometown of Boulder, Colorado, with her husband (and dance partner) and daughter. Dancing on My Own Two Feet is her first book.
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Kimberly Sullivan
I write the women’s fiction stories I love to read, both contemporary and historic tales of women and the rich lives they lead along their journeys of self-discovery. A lifetime admirer and longtime resident of Italy, I’m often guilty of sneaking the bel paese into my stories.
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Award-winning author of five novels, one short story collection and coeditor of a historical fiction anthology. Proud member of the Women's Fiction Writers Association (WFWA), and the Historical Novel Society.
Please follow me on BookBub at: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kimbe...
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Linda Rosen
Fitness Professional turned novelist, Linda Rosen’s books are set in the “not-too-distant past” and examine how women reinvent themselves despite obstacles thrown their way. A central theme is that blood is not all that makes a family– and they always feature a piece of jewelry!
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She is published by Black Rose Writing.
Linda was a contributor to Women in the Literary Landscape: A WNBA Centennial Publication for the Women's National Book Association and to the anthology, Launch Pad: The Guide to Writing Your Book. She is a member of the Women's Fiction Writers Association and the Women’s National Book Association, co-founder of the South Florida chapter.
Linda lives with her husband in New Jersey, just ten miles from New York City and a few b -
Jill Amy Sager
Jill Amy Sager is a celebrated Tarot reader, channeler, and public speaker with an international clientele. Her compassionate readings offer deep insight and clarity. Born with a physical disability, in the Bronx, Jill’s journey from low self-esteem to self-love has inspired her to help others find spiritual empowerment. Based in Western Oregon today, Jill continues to uplift her clients through hope-filled guidance and healing.
Buy books on Amazon
Guidance from the Universe: Hopeful Messages for Everyday Challenges is her 2nd non-fiction book.
She authored the instructional "Beginning Hand Drumming: A Guide to Recreation and Wellness," after her ten years of being a professional percussionist. According to Dave Getz, drummer for Janis Joplin and Big Brother a -
Jennifer Celeste Briggs
Jennifer Celeste Briggs has a BA in English Literature from Swarthmore college. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and two daughters. Her daughter Sarah has a genetic anomaly and autism. When Sarah was four, Jenny decided to run a Son-Rise Program for her, calling it Sarah-Rise, and training at the Autism Treatment Center of America. The Son-Rise Program is a loving child-centered approach to helping those with autism and other challenges connect socially, verbally, and through increased eye contact. Organizing hundreds of hours of therapeutic play time for Sarah, Jenny trained and coordinated multiple volunteers who contributed their love and creativity to the venture. Jenny started a blog to share the experience of Sarah-Rise an
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Lisa Montanaro
Lisa Montanaro is part no-nonsense Italian American New Yorker and part sunny Californian. She has a unique background as a performer, teacher of the Deaf, lawyer, coach, speaker, and author. Lisa writes book club fiction featuring complex characters breaking barriers and fighting to truly be themselves despite obstacles in their way—including the time they live in and societal stigmas.
Buy books on Amazon
Her debut novel, Everything We Thought Was True, released January 2025 by Red Adept Publishing. It won first place for LGBTQ Fiction in the 2024 International Firebird Book Awards, honorable mention for General Fiction in the 2025 Los Angeles Book Festival, and finalist for LGBTQ Fiction in the National Indie Excellence Awards. Her chapter, “The Brand Called -
Brandi Bradley
Brandi Bradley is an Atlanta- based writer who loves to tell a good story.
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Cowboys, flea markets, petty crime, secret lovers, and any story that might be swapped over a couple of beers or the one-more-but-then-I-must-leave glass of wine.
Her debut novel Mothers of the Missing Mermaid released on April 1, 2023 and is a family drama about a young woman who learns she had been kidnapped when she was a toddler and whisked away to be raised on the Emerald Coast.
Her forthcoming novel, Pretty Girls Get Away with Murder, is set to release on March 14, 2025.
She also writes non-fiction essays about her flea market and rodeo days as well as short crime fiction. Her latest short work "Local Monsters" released in December of 2023.
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Barbara Southard
BARBARA SOUTHARD is the author of two works of fiction. The Pinch of the Crab, a collection of ten stories set in Puerto Rico, explored social conflicts of island life, mostly from the female perspective. In the historical novel Unruly Human Hearts, Barbara once again explores personal crises embedded in social conflict from the point of view of a female protagonist, Elizabeth Tilton, the woman involved in the famous Beecher-Tilton scandal of the 1870s. Unruly Human Hearts won the IPPY Awards Silver Medal for Historical Fiction (2025) and was recognized as an American Fiction Awards finalist for Literary Fiction (2025).
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Barbara grew up in New York City, holds a PhD in history from the University of Hawaii, and has served as a professor and